Special Effects Artists, Try Cloud VFX Rendering Services

Rendering video and special visual effects takes a kind of artistic mastery very few can appreciate. One look at some of the top-grossing movies that were made using almost entirely CGI special effects, and you know that these artists spent millions of hours getting everything just right so that it all looks very real and very believable.

It makes you wonder, though, if they could have made these movies with a lesser budget. Well, actually they can and could, if they were (or had been) using Cloud VFX rendering services from a place like Render Storm. Going forward, movies you make with massive special effects budgets can do it "in the cloud," and it looks something like this.

Bye-Bye, Render Farms

Render farms are locations where dozens of traditional data centers are erected for the purpose of rendering film images to produce quality special effects for films-in-progress. As you know, data centers take up a lot of space. The films being rendered and the accompanying special effects take up even more space.

The problems start when special effects artists run out of space to store the work because the rendering farms are not big enough to handle the workload. The cost to build and install dozens of more data centers is what makes the budget go through the roof for films with lots of special effects. If the producers and backers of these films move the rendering to the Cloud, the film's budget for special effects plummets with it. Interestingly, the quality of the special effects rises, conversely with the drop in cost, because of the cloud rendering services.

Hello, Cloud VFX Rendering Plugins

Render this, render that, then move it into the Cloud. It sounds so easy, right? Actually, it is easy, since there have been a lot of Cloud VFX rendering plugins developed to make the artists' work even easier. Better still, nothing gets lost, tampered with, stolen, or destroyed by a virus.

Nobody likes to work on a film only to have a computer virus eat the best scenes and eat the best special effects sequences. Plus, if you and/or the artists need to move what you already have on a render farm to the Cloud, the transition is a very smooth one. This reduces the cost in hours worked by the special effects artists, which in turn reduces the overall cost to produce the movie.

Talk to a "Service Provider"

To get started on Cloud VFX rendering projects, find a "service provider" with the plugins and training you need. If you are trying to keep a film under wraps (and who is not these days), you can refer to your project in very general terms. Then you can get down to business of making an awesome film.

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